Do I Divide And Fall Apart?
by CodependentCollision
Summary: It was names that tripped them up.


**A/N:** Received a prompt from someone who wishes to remain anonymous - Mitchsen, they lose the baby. Just so you're properly warned about what's ahead, incase it is a subject that triggers you.

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It was names that tripped them up.

Aubrey wanted something classic, elegant: Elizabeth? Catherine? Something that, she said, would look good with "Senator" or "Doctor" or "President." Beca was fonder of unique names: Juliet! Ramona!

"Come on. We should make sure our daughter's the only one in kindergarten with her name. There'll be, like, five other little Elizabeths. I'm still rooting for Ramona."

"I feel profoundly apathetic about Ramona," Aubrey says, flipping through the name book. The two of them are sitting on their living room floor, looking through name books and highlighting the ones they both agreed on. They just found out that day they would be having a girl in December. Beca called it the best Christmas present Aubrey would ever give her. "How about Sarah?"

"Also too common. Oh! Great idea! Let's name her after a song!"

Aubrey gives Beca what she hopes is a truly withering glare—but she's too happy and excited to be very mad. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know. Alison?"

"Elvis Costello? That's not exactly a positive song, Beca."

Beca thinks, then snaps her fingers. "Roxanne! Roxanne Mitchell-Posen. Tell me you don't love it."

"I don't. Beca, Roxanne was a prostitute, remember?"

"Oh yeah." She shrugs. "We'll figure something out. We always do."

They'd been trying for almost two years to have a kid. Just when they were going to give up hope and adopt, the test came up positive.

Aubrey rolls her eyes, but has to smile. "Just don't convince me to name her something terrible like Apple or Audio Science when I'm out of it on painkillers, okay? I'd like to be in my right mind when I agree to something like our child's name."

"I promise," Beca says, holding up two fingers, "Scout's honor."

Three days later, at four in the morning, they're both asleep when Aubrey sits up abruptly. Beca wakes up at the same time. "Aubrey?"

"Got a—having a—oh, god, get me to the hospital."

Beca breaks the speed limit and very nearly totals the car multiple times driving to the hospital. Aubrey is taken away to the OR as soon as they get there. Beca is left by herself in a small, clean waiting room, with nothing to keep her company but an infomercial on the TV mounted on the wall and a few potted plants. She calls everyone she knows, just to hear another voice.

"Beca, don't worry," Jesse says. "Aubrey's tough and I bet your kid's got some of that too. Just keep it together."

"I'm not going to tell you this isn't a big deal, because it is," Chloe offers, "but, Beca, don't do anything stupid. Do it for Aubrey, do it for your daughter."

Friends offer condolences, say they'll keep Aubrey in their thoughts, offer to come over. Beca refuses them all. She's got her eyes fixed, unseeing, on a rerun of Regis and Kelly when the doctor comes in. "Ms. Mitchell?"

Beca turns around. The doctor isn't smiling.

Later, she finds out the reason the baby didn't survive was because her lungs were too underdeveloped to sustain her, and her fragile systems just couldn't take the shock of the outside world. But there and then all she wants to know is, "Can I see my wife?"

A nurse takes her to the room where Aubrey's already awake. When Beca walks in, Aubrey's sitting up in bed. She's staring out the window, hands over her mouth. "Beca, I saw her," she says quietly. "She was so beautiful."

Aubrey's discharged after a few days. They arrange to have her cremated. Aubrey saved what they brought home from the hospital—birth (and death) certificates, hand and foot prints. They don't name her—on the paperwork it says "Baby Girl Mitchell-Posen." Aubrey gets into their bed and doesn't get out for two days. Beca doesn't sleep. She walks around the house late at night, thinking she's going crazy.

Chloe and Jesse organize a funeral/memorial service for their friends. The day before, neither of them get up before noon, or get out of their pajamas the entire day. They go to bed that night around midnight, not having said ten words to each other for a week. How can Aubrey articulate the rage and the guilt and the sorrow she feels? How could Beca put into words the bone breaking sadness?

"I was thinking," Aubrey says, lying turned away from Beca in bed. "I was thinking—the name Caroline. It's nice."

"Where'd you get that?"

"'Pretty in Pink.' It's the name of the girl."

"The movie? Dude, her name was Andie." Beca can barely believe the words coming out of her mouth—they're burying their first child tomorrow and she's talking 80's movie trivia? Asshole.

"Not the movie. The song—by Psychedelic Furs? It's where John Hughes got the title."

Aubrey sits up, brushes some hair away from her eyes, sings, "Caroline laughs and it's raining all day, she loves to be one of the girls . . ."

Beca remembers. "And her lovers walk through with their coats . . ."

"Isn't she pretty in pink?"

Then Aubrey lets out a dry sob and presses her face into Beca's chest, crying, saying how much she'd loved her. Beca, as is all too common lately, is lost for words.


End file.
